Ask HN: How are you acquiring your first hundred users?

For my SaaS, the first 100 users were almost too easy. I partnered with a company sitting on thousands of clients and offered my tool—free—to just 10% of their list. But I didn’t sell features. I asked what their clients hated most, then built a fix for that. One well-placed feature, and the doors swung open. Real users, real feedback—and we’re still building on that foundation.

Then there’s my blog. A creative sandbox, no overlap with my day job. No built-in audience. No distribution. Still waiting on subscriber #1 (Mom, seriously—now would be a good time).

Takeaways:

    Partner with someone who already has meaningful reach.

    Solve a real, hair-on-fire problem.

    Offer something free to earn early trust.

    Knock on doors, pitch relentlessly, repeat. And hope the gods of luck are listening.

As for the writing side—different beast. Slower burn, no roadmap, no shortcuts. Still wandering in the woods, but enjoying the walk. Open to ideas—and subscribers. (Mom… last chance.)

Also, I subscribed to your blog. Content looks interesting, but asking for a name during sign up is a little off-putting.

Got it—and thanks for subscribing! Really appreciate the feedback. I used the default settings, but now I know what I’ll be tweaking tonight. Totally agree—simple is best.

Another piece of feedback: ~90% seems written by ChatGPT. That is very off-putting.

The users comments all read like chatgpt. Loads of em dash. Short acknowledgement at the beginning e.g. "got it"

Strange times

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I hope I don’t get grilled, or offend anyone for saying this: I use AI at every level of my work because it speeds things up—especially when it comes to grammar and sentence structure. And yes, I was overusing dashes even before ChatGPT was a thing.

I use AI for coding too. It definitely helps with speed and boilerplate, though I’ll admit it sometimes sends me deep down the rabbit hole. Still, the ideas, creativity, and decisions are my own.

For what it’s worth, the structure is AI-assisted, but the wording and ideas are entirely my own. I use whatever AI chat window or tool is open in my browser—Grammarly, Hemingway, Word or others.

I’m here to share and learn, and I hope that still comes through—Thanks again.